Dawood's Mentor

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  We met at Queen Mary Hotel near Ismailia Hospital in Byculla and, somehow, the conversation steered towards Shootout at Wadala. Sikandar’s face reddened with fury. He seemed to be visibly upset at Sanjay Gupta for his rash portrayal of Khalid Pehelwan in the movie and was itching to take punitive measures against the film-maker.

  ‘Sanjay Gupta’s office was located near an intersection. These were MHADA row houses converted into offices. We conducted a recce of his office and planned to attack him if he misbehaved with Khalid Bhai.’

  Sikandar recounted how Gupta could have staved off the threat from Dawood’s gang but he did not even know that he was also on the radar of Khalid Pehelwan’s team. Gupta apparently had to placate Khalid Pehelwan and convince him that there was nothing offensive about his portrayal in the movie. Khalid was finally convinced, but not Sikandar Shah.

  ‘Bhai ne mana kar diya, nahin toh hum log full tayyari mein the (Bhai said no, otherwise we were fully prepared),’ he said casually over gallons of carrot juice.

  In my twenty years of crime journalism I had heard about Khalid Pehelwan plenty of times. I heard that the man had retired from mafia chieftainship and was now a recluse. So it was interesting to see how one movie created so much sensation that Khalid was forced out of his self-imposed isolation.

  As we were busy talking, Sikandar’s phone rang suddenly. I was surprised to see that the man who, until moments ago was the picture of authority and power, was now the embodiment of humility.

  ‘Jee, Bhai . . . Jee, Bhai . . . Jee, Bhai . . . Mere saamne baithe hain (Yes, Bhai . . . He is sitting in front of me).’

  Then he passed his old and outdated Nokia phone to me.

  ‘Salaam alaikum, main Khalid bol raha hoon (Salaam alaikum, this is Khalid speaking),’ were the first words he uttered.

  ‘Jee, farmaiyye (Yes, please tell me).’

  He began by mentioning my book Dongri to Dubai and immediately expressed his resentment over the way I had described him in the book. Khalid was particularly upset over a scene in the book where I had depicted the push-up competition between him and his former boss Bashu Dada, in which he had lost to Bashu.

  ‘I want to clarify that I could never lose to Bashu and that you got your facts wrong.’

  Khalid ranted for a while and then the phone got cut. I was not sure if he had slammed the phone down or whether it was a call drop.

  I had to meet Khalid. I wanted his side of the story. I had always wanted to meet Dawood’s mentor. I also wanted to know the motivations that drove a pehelwan (wrestler) into the mafia’s waiting arms. And most of all I was interested in knowing how Khalid Pehelwan survived Dawood’s ire. Imagine disassociating with Dawood and living to tell the tale. I wanted to know why Dawood respected his mentor.

  That evening at the Queen Mary Hotel with Sikandar Shah was very fruitful. I was already making plans to travel to Dubai once again to meet Khalid Khan.

  5

  The Dubai Rendezvous

  The few seconds seemed to stretch on for eternity when Rayyan, my protégé, remained suspended in mid-air, poised like Superman with his arms outstretched. At twenty-eight, Rayyan weighed in at a solid 90 kg, had a squat built and was muscular. But the man who hoisted him over his shoulders, much like a WWF wrestler would, was a seventy-year-old. When Rayyan finished his Superman pose and was back on terra firma, his head was spinning. But the man who swung him up like a rag doll didn’t lose any sweat. Leave alone panting or any signs of exertion, the elderly Khalid Pehelwan didn’t even register an increased heartbeat. Khalid was demonstrating his physical prowess by lifting Rayyan in this elegant five-star-hotel room. For years, after reading Dongri to Dubai, he had been angry with me for mentioning his lack of strength vis-à-vis Bashu Dada. And now he was a cocking a snook at me. I apologized and ate humble pie.

  ‘Tumne meri taaqat ka namuna dekh liya (I hope you have got some idea about my strength now),’ he said with a triumphant smile. Khalid is almost 6 feet 2 inches, hair dyed jet black, with a receding hairline, a thick moustache and a firm jaw. He looks like an extremely fit man in his early sixties. Donning a beige suit, he looked dapper in his hotel room overlooking the beautiful Dubai harbour.

  The view outside was simply not Dubaiesque. With glass and chrome buildings, the city has long since left behind its former ‘arid desert’ image. But here in this part of Dubai there is organization, of course, but there are also dhows and boats anchored cheek by jowl, constantly offloaded with all kinds of goods. It looked like a scene straight out of an Indiana Jones movie—the bazaar, the goods, the colours. While across the harbour you could see the skyline of modern-day Dubai, below the hotel it was like Gateway of India. There was a lot of chaos but the shimmering blue water and the view was simply spectacular.

  While pressing Khalid for this meeting, I got the impression that he was not very keen on the same. He had his apprehensions about meeting a writer. He thought I was a snooping journalist out to expose him for a television scoop.

  Soon after I had spoken to him from Sikandar’s phone in Mumbai, I decided to meet Khalid in Dubai. I landed in Dubai on 9 February 2017. I had no idea that I was being followed from the airport by an unmarked car—I remained totally oblivious to my shadow. These are lessons in humility for me. I had always claimed that I could spot any car tailing me after three signals. But this time I had been caught unawares.

  Dubai was no longer as energetic and vibrant as I found it to be during my last visit, when I had managed to track down Abu Salem’s top confidant, childhood friend and cousin, Abu Kalam, in 2014. Abu Kalam had revealed to me absolutely unknown details about Salem’s life, which had even astonished Salem when he read my book. He was curious to know the source. But there were several. And though Abu Kalam only told me about Salem’s personal life, I didn’t reveal his identity. Abu Kalam is now dead, of course, having succumbed to some illness.

  During my 2017 visit, I saw a changed Dubai. While things looked the same on the surface, the malls pulsing with a thousand nationalities, the global recession had definitely left its imprint. While there still seemed to be a lot of construction activities, I was told there had been a slump in real estate and other businesses—over 300 small businesses that were flourishing shut down without notices and business owners reported bankruptcy.

  The don who had kick-started his journey as a billionaire from the soil of Dubai—linking his fortunes with that of a growing city from the 1980s to the mid 1990s—was himself a victim of the recession. Dawood Ibrahim had partnered with many local sheikhs in the UAE with business investments worth over Rs 3500 crore in Dubai. The economic downturn was also making him bleed, mainly due to the change in exchange rates, which, in turn, affects hawala rates. As I sauntered through the streets and malls I could sense a feeling of gloom and stoicism. Dubai’s massive workforce boasts over 40 lakh Indians, mostly from Kerala, which results in making the Indian government richer through an annual remittance of USD 10 billion, figures released by the state government of Kerala.

  Rayyan had left after checking me into a nondescript apartment hotel near Deira. The man had to struggle for a living, the country was not as sparkling with opportunities as it was until a couple of years ago. That night I received a call from a Dubai number asking me to be at the coffee shop of the Hyatt Regency hotel at noon. I was restless through the night and, consequently, did not feel my best in the morning.

  As I was being escorted to the meeting, I recalled my first disastrous meeting with Khalid Pehelwan. It happened in a room reeking of opulence, affluence and power. Two suits were standing outside the door. We had started off well after we shook hands. He seemed courteous. But my laptop bag came in the way. His perception of journalists in Mumbai was limited to a khadi-kurta-clad person with a jhola (cloth bag)—the image reinforced by movies in the 1970s. I, on the contrary, had burst on to the journalism scene in 1995, when the khadi and the jhola were on the wane. By the turn of the new century, journalists had transitioned from pagers t
o the massive handset-mobile phones that looked like walkie-talkies. And by the time 2010 rolled around, it was common for journalists to look like corporate honchos with laptop bags in tow.

  Khalid instantly took a dislike to my laptop and got very upset. Perhaps he had seen too much sansanikhez khabar (the so-called ‘sensational scoops’) on television and presumed that I was there to do a sting on him. After a brief debate, he insisted that the laptop bag be kept outside the room as he was not sure if I would record our conversation on the sly and, therefore, the bag was thrown on the sofa in the corridor. We spoke briefly for half an hour. But his hostile attitude seemed to suggest that he thought I was carrying a hidden camera on my person. He graciously offered me a strongly brewed tea laced with honey, served by a liveried waiter. The laptop bag had set the tone for the meeting and we didn’t cover much ground.

  I was jolted back to the present time as the lift opened into the corridor and I was ushered into the hotel room. I kept my fingers crossed, hoping Khalid would find no reason to stall the interview this time. After last time’s laptop fiasco I had had to wait in Dubai for days, hoping Khalid would call. Finally, I gave up and left for Mumbai. That was over two years ago.

  In fact, this time I told him that I had company. I was asking Rayyan Rizvi to tag along to take notes. Rayyan’s dad and I go back a long way. I was part of Rayyan’s growing-up years and knew that he harboured aspirations to become a sports journalist. He was a good observer and had even worked under me as a sports reporter while I helmed Asian Age in Mumbai. He now lives in Dubai with his wife and children and is engaged in the export–import business.

  Before the meeting, Khalid had asked me to wait outside the Salah Al Din metro station at 5 p.m. A black SUV came by, and the burly driver, who recognized me from a distance, waved at me to get inside the car. I was a bit frazzled at being recognized so clearly by a stranger. Was he shown photographs of me, or did he google my images? Was it safe? Will a sniper be setting his lenses on me now? I was plagued by insecurities.

  However, pushing away negative thoughts, Rayyan and I got inside the car. I made an effort to make small talk but the driver was seemingly well-trained in the art of verbal warfare—he remained polite throughout and only replied with a ‘jee’ (yes) as the standard answer to all my questions. The conversation went something like this:

  ‘Is Dubai as chaotic as Mumbai?’

  ‘Jee.’

  ‘What do you do for Khalid Bhai?’

  ‘Jee.’

  ‘For how many years have you been working for him?’

  ‘Jee.’

  ‘Are you Indian or Pakistani?’

  ‘Jee.’

  It was as if he had been robotically programmed not to deviate from his set replies. I gave up.

  The vehicle made a sharp turn and entered a building basement, which was more like a dark cavern-like alley, reminding me of a scene from Kamal Haasan’s disastrous spy flick Vishwaroopam. We were taken through a secret entry point and straight into a parking lot. A special lift took us straight to Khalid’s office. I had no idea where we were, but I had learnt my lesson early in life—not to ask too many questions.

  Khalid was quite welcoming this time and, to my surprise, he was quite charming with Rayyan as well.

  ‘Tumhara bhatija (Your nephew)?’

  I nodded vigorously.

  ‘Your features match with his, it’s a dead giveaway,’ he said, trying to be charming.

  I had tried to be cautious this time and had left my laptop bag behind. Khalid ordered a nice meal for us and served us equally refreshing tea with honey. Dubai’s hotels cannot satisfy one with good Indian tea; although Pakistani establishments like the Raavi chain of hotels do make a good brew, they often dilute how crisp the tea is with too much sugar.

  Khalid was in a much more candid mood today and quite forthcoming. It was during the course of the conversation that I asked him about how he had ended up conjoining his name with the title of a wrestler. In the Mumbai underworld there are many titles used to address gangsters, but most of them are pejoratives—Salim Kutta (dog), Iqbal Mirchi (chilli), Anil Wangya (brinjal), Umar Dhakkan (dick-headed), and so on. But Khalid had managed to receive a unique title. A pehelwan is not just a healthy man or a wrestler but a man with a massive physique.

  Khalid responded to my pehelwan question with full-throated laughter. I was reminded of Amjad Khan’s portrayal of Gabbar Singh in Sholay.

  It was then that he told me his story, about how he grew up to be a wrestler, defeating opponents in a jiffy and winning national-level trophies, including the Bharat Kumar (a freestyle wrestling competition organized by the Haryana government). He related that he had inherited his wrestling skills as a hand-me-down from his father who was also a wrestler. His father had taught him the tricks of the trade and the magic formula to defeat the strongest of opponents.

  I was, at first, sceptical of Khalid’s claims of invincibility. It was then that he got up from behind the table and asked Rayyan to step forward. And before the bewildered boy knew it, he was being help high up in the air.

  I was given a first-hand demonstration of the former wrestler’s stunning physical prowess—additionally impressive considering he was well past his prime, by at least four decades. I have spent enough time in the gym to know what it takes to command that kind of strength.

  After Rayyan’s airlift, it seemed like the ice broke and the conversation suddenly became more animated and exciting, and since Khalid was in a forthcoming and generous mood, I decided to make this count and get my queries answered. He spoke of how, in his college days, he had been challenged to a fight and how, in a stunning upset, he had knocked out his rival. And then there was no looking back.

  This turned out to be an endless meeting, with countless cups of tea.

  Khalid’s story was a fascinating saga of a bright student who not only ended up with the Mumbai mafia but graduated to becoming the mentor of a powerful don like Dawood Ibrahim.

  6

  The Legend of Pathans

  Since Bollywood serves as our ready reckoner for what different kinds of people and tribes are supposed to look like, and tragicomically also shapes our perceptions about communities, who could better embody the mighty race of the Pathans than the stalwart of Hindi cinema, the one and only Amitabh Bachchan. Remember Khuda Gawah—with kohl-lined eyes, Bachchan swept us into the world of the Pathans, their fierce loyalty, their sense of honour, the sense of pride in their clan. Like the Rajputs of India, their community is bound by an unwritten code, where honour is paramount, where their word is their bond even if they have to sacrifice all that they hold dear in life.

  So we see Pran’s Sher Khan in Zanjeer, Shah Rukh Khan in Hey Ram and Salman Khan in Sanam Bewafa, all of them showcasing a Pathan. The nationalist freedom fighter Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, known as Frontier Gandhi, crystallized in our heads the image of a Pathan as a benevolent, soft person with a big heart, in a big frame.

  The Pathans have their own take on their history and antecedents: King Talut, known as King Saul in the Old Testament, had left behind an orphaned grandson by the name of Afghana, who was brought up by Hazrat Dawood, or David, as his own son. Afghana grew up with Solomon, who later anointed him ‘Malak Afghana’ and made him the commander in chief of his massive army; Afghana eventually helped in the construction of Masjid Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. His multiple conquests took him to an area bordering Russia, which is now in present-day Afghanistan; he died here and was buried near the Sulaiman mountains near Zhob.

  Thousands of years later, when the Prophet of Islam, Hazrat Muhammad, gave a clarion call and invited the world towards Islam, the message reached far and wide. The tribes near Zhob and the regions of Ghor were also eager to meet him and investigate the truth of the Prophet. All the tribes got together and deputed a noble scholarly man, Pehtan Qais, to visit the Holy Prophet in Mecca to gather more facts about this new religion. Qais undertook an arduous journey to Mecca. After his meeting with Prophet
Muhammad he embraced Islam. Legend has it that Qais was renamed as Qais Abdur Rashid by the Prophet himself. One of the companions of the Prophet, Khalid bin Waleed, had his daughter betrothed to Qais, who returned to his country and disseminated the religion further.

  Since the Zhobi tribals spoke Pashtun and were known as the Pehtan, it was difficult for the Arabs to pronounce it. The Arabic language does not have the sound for pa in its repertoire, so Pakistan becomes ‘Bakistan’ for an Arab. Pehtan became ‘Bataan’, which was further corrupted to ‘Pathan’. Since Afghanistan was also a trade border, with Iran close by, the Arabs began exploiting their martial instincts and roped in the Pathans as part of the armies for several conquests where they used violence to spread Islam. After the demise of Prophet Muhammad, the successive caliphs used the might of the Pathans to spread Islam in countries like Iran and Syria. The Syrian army was defeated with the assistance of Pathans, who were related to Khalid bin Waleed. It is said that the Pathans were thus instrumental in the spread of Islam to western Asia within the first fifty years of its advent. Ghazni, Ghour and seventy-six other tribal areas had converted to Islam. It is a different story that the Ghaznis and Ghouris unleashed an untold tale of violence, bloodshed, tyranny and plundering in India, which, to this day, has discoloured the glory of Islam for generations of Indians.

  Coming back to Qais (who was the thirty-seventh descendant of King Saul), he specified in his will that he should be buried close to the Takht-e-Sulaiman, or the grave of Malak Afghana, in the Baluchistan region near the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (or FATA) of Pakistan. The Pathans are proud to state that they have origins in Pakistan and not Afghanistan. They also proudly trace their lineage to Malak Afghana and Qais Abdur Rashid, the legendary aide to the Holy Prophet.

  However, in the pre-Independence era, the region had limited opportunities for economic growth and even the generation of income. Agriculture was the main occupation but it was not enough to sustain large families. This spurred the exodus of Pathans to more prosperous places in India like Mumbai, Gujarat and Bhopal.